


Let's Gather The Family

by niichts



Series: The New Adventures Of The Thirteenth Doctor (And Fam) [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dark!13, Eventual Romance, F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mutilation, Self-Mutilation, thasmin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2019-10-31 13:20:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17850215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niichts/pseuds/niichts
Summary: "Thieves. Always so predictable. All they want is the grand prize and then they’re away. No loyalty. No allegiance. Nothing to toy with. I was hoping for something more with this particular curly-haired criminal. But no. Apparently she’s so fixated on the present that she hasn’t been informed of our best friend’s recent gender change.But, Doctors! They have loyalty, they have allegiance. And they have companions. Doctors are much more fun…"The Doctor, in a way, was sincerely hoping she'd never see Missy again. But whilst she hadn't seen her exactly, she's still been there, in the shadows, planning her next move. That move being to help the Doctor. Or so she believes.





	1. River

**Author's Note:**

> For those who read DC comics, you may notice that the plot of this story may coincide similarly with that of the Joker's storyline in the New 52. Fun fact: I was recently watching the episodes of series 10 with Missy and, as most fans have, wondered: "what would she be like if she some how returned?" Rest assured, I'll try and answer that question in my own way at some point in this too. For those who have read the New 52 comics, I implore you to stay and enjoy the Doctor Who spin I've put on it. If you haven't, then still have a read and, if you enjoy, I highly advise you check those comics out afterwards.

It was supposed to be a routine job. In and out. Diamonds in hand. Little to no security.

 

Capricorn Cruiseliners had certainly seen a dive in its sales since the death of its leading figure, River mused to herself as she snuck past a sleeping guard who had his head on his workbench. First of all, Capricorn himself had disappeared from the public eye and only ever communicated via hologram from that point on. Then there was that whole business a few Christmases ago when the jewel of his galactic fleet, the Titanic, almost crashed into Earth and wiped out all life in a single blast from its nuclear storm drive. Capricorn himself was apparently killed in the incident.

 

Convenient, that.

 

Even before the aforementioned incident, the company was already going under. It was the 25th century now; intergalactic cruises were a thing of the past once personal teleporters started being built into the ships of every Tom, Dick and Harry. And if that failed, there was always an occasional influx of vortex manipulators from the black market. The only downside with _that_ particular phenomenon was that every corporation in this period that dealt with valuable items or information had top-of-the-range security to deal with any thieves that felt like warping over and getting their greedy mitts on someone’s bank details.

 

Luckily, it seemed neither the company board nor the government had deemed Capricorn Cruiseliners worth the investment and had promptly left it to rot both financially and physically. This suited her just fine. It’s not like there was anything in other places that she couldn’t find here, really. You just had to know where to look.

 

Navigating the drawers of the manger’s desk in the inky darkness of the office, she finally closed her hand around a key. A good old-fashioned, non-electronic key. Her earpiece beeped as she put herself through to her accomplice, who was on the roof with the schematics.

 

“Psi” she murmured, smiling to herself. One more step and they were home free. “I’ve got the key. Just pull the combination from the database and it’s payday.”

 

It wasn’t like there was any real need to whisper. If the guards even caught her there, they’d probably be too stunned and dead on their feet to even react to her presence in time.

 

A quiet chuckle came from the other end of the line.

 

“Sure thing, River. Just give me a sec…”

 

There was the vague sound of buttons mashing and a monitor bleeping before he responded again.

 

“Two-six-nine-one” he confirmed.

 

She didn’t bother thank him. The remaining twenty-three million pounds in what was once Capricorn’s own personal treasure trove would be gratitude enough. Instead, she walked over to the rather ominous steel door on the right-hand wall of the office and began inserting the key and pressing the keypad, reciting the numbers in her head as she did so.

 

Luck seemed to be on her side, as she was greeted with the ever-pleasing sound of bolts receding and the rusted hinges swinging open with a slight squeaking.

 

Capricorn had never fully trusted banks. He shouldn’t have trusted their passcode-protection systems either when there were people like Psi around.

 

A few stacks of fifty-pound notes mounted every available inch of space in the enclosed vault. Removing her bag from her back and letting it hit the faded carpet beneath her boots, she wasted no time in grabbing handfuls and shoving it all in, not bothering to collect any that came loose and floated away. She could make up for it by robbing Victor Kennedy’s mansion next week or something.

 

She walked over to the open window, a sliver of moonlight illuminating her exit route onto the emergency stairwell.

 

“Alright Psi,” she said, now grinning, “I’m coming up to you. Start packing up your things love, because I’m going to be fast.”

 

_Bzzzt._

A slight hiss of static air greeted her as response. She tried again.

 

“Psi? Get ready to leave. Maybe we can trip the alarm just before we fly off for fun.”

 

_Bzzzt._

That wasn’t right. The smile threatened to fall from River’s face, but she forced herself go stay optimistic. He must be one step ahead of her, already smashing up his communicator as she stood there idly so as to dispose of any evidence. For having a hunk of metal implanted in his brain, he sure could think fast. 

 

Making sure her bag was stuffed to the brim with banknotes; she threw herself onto the fire escape stairwell without a second’s glance behind her. In one swift movement, she leaped from the top platform, onto the drainage pipe and then onto the roof with a slight flip just for extra effect.

 

Psi was sat with his back to her, his mobile monitors still beeping haphazardly, one with the screensaver playing.

 

“You need to fix your communicator,” she snapped, deciding it was best to fake anger towards him. He was one of the best partners-in-crime she’d had in a while and she certainly didn’t want his standards to start slipping now. “And where’s the ship, anyway? We sort of need that in order to get off this roof, since my manipulator doesn’t have enough charge to get us both back on its own.”

 

Psi didn’t respond. His irritating screensaver flashed its numerous rainbow colours at her in that infuriatingly casual manner.

 

“Psi!“ she grunted, now altogether unsure whether her anger was now faked or not. Was he listening to music or something?

 

She grabbed his head and yanked it around to face her, before feeling something under her fingers. It was thin and rough.

 

Rope.

 

She dared to walk over to his front. Even if she hadn’t paid attention to his milky, unseeing eyes, or the way his mouth hung open in that vacant manner, it was easy to tell that he was dead. The colours of the monitors highlighted the red marks on his wrists and the unclothed areas of his stomach and ankles.

 

She’d talked to him only five minutes ago, so this was recent. Breath catching her throat, she straightened herself up as she noticed the way that his body was sat in a bizarre sort of dancing pose, with his left hand tied onto an outstretched leg and his right arm bent against his hip.

 

River closed her eyes and tried to think, making sure not to break into a panicked and undignified sprint to safety. Someone had deliberately murdered Psi and that someone had most likely taken their ship. Though if this was just a regular group of thugs who were out to rob someone in a manner much more violent than her own, then they wouldn’t have taken the time to attach him to his chair and posed him in this way. They would’ve just slit his throat and be done with it, as cruel as the universe was these days. So who, then?

 

“Don’t get too close, my dear. You’ll ruin all the wiring.”

 

A female Scot was definitely _not_ high on her list of possible suspects. Yet that was the voice River heard coming from behind her. She spun around, drawing her blaster from her boot. She’d really been hoping she wouldn’t have had to spend her prize on yet more laser charges, but it looked like her luck had finally ended for the night.

 

Her target’s silhouette alone was strange. She wore a scabby purple blouse and matching skirt, the end of which was ragged and torn. The white shirt underneath was rumpled and her black boots coated in mud with the laces unfastened. A sickeningly ugly brooch, cracked and uncared for, sat limply on between her collar and her face…

 

Jesus Christ. Her _face_.

 

It looked like a face. But at the same time, it just _didn’t_. The skin around the eyes was stretched, revealing the fleshy areas around her eyebrows and down the sides of her electric-blue eyes (one of which was clouded over and bloodshot). Her mouth area was suffering a similar situation: the edges were being held up by thin metal hooks that went up behind either ear to keep the skin taunt. You could see the tops and bottoms of all her teeth, as well as the gums. A thin line of visible flesh similarly ran along the circumference of her entire head.

 

A mask. That was what it was like.

 

Whether it was her own face or not, it was being worn as an ill-fitting mask.

 

River thumbed back the safety and didn’t let the pure shock register on her face. An elementary mistake was to let the enemy know you were scared and she wasn’t planning on falling for it any time soon.

 

“Who are you and what do you want” she said flatly, not even posing it as a question. Her gun arm didn’t waver.

 

The…could she even call it a _woman?_   The figure stepped further into the beam of her gun’s in-built flashlight, revealing what could have once been quite an elegant hat upon her hand, in a similar shade of shocking purple. Even the fake fruit on top seemed hideously deformed, pieces of it flaking off.

 

“Hello, Miss Song” the woman said from that ugly maw, her accent unmistakeable. River had heard that the Scots were an acquired taste, but this particular specimen was probably a bit much even by Jack Harkness’ legendary standards. “Lovely gun you’ve got there. Mind putting it down for a little while so we can chat like civilised women?”

 

“I’d rather not. After all, you _have_ just murdered my partner.”

 

“Ah, but you see, that’s what I want to talk about. Your partner.”

 

River raised an eyebrow as a response.

 

“Oh no, not _this_ sack of augmented meat” the woman giggled slightly, motioning to Psi’s limp corpse. “All _he_ was good for was a few minute’s mannequin modelling. No no, I meant your _life_ partner. ‘Til death does you part and all that jazz.”

 

“The thing is, I’ve had quite a few of those partners, too” River murmured, inching forward ever so slightly. The creepy woman copied her move exactly.

 

“I think you know which one I’m talking about, Miss Song. May I call you River? I feel like we’re building a nice little relationship here, you and I.”

 

“No, you may not” River said, taking another small step. Once again, the move was copied. “And I’m afraid you’ll have to be a bit more specific before I grow bored. I tend to get quite trigger-happy when I’m bored.”

 

The woman let out another shrill giggle.

 

“That makes two of us” she said, her clouded eye rolling back in her head slightly as the other stayed put. It made River vaguely sick, to be honest. “But to answer your inquiry my dear, I’m afraid there’s a lot of descriptions I can give _this_ particular partner. At the minute I think he’s…what year is it? Oh yes, that’s right. The skinny one. You know, pinstripe suit, spiky hair, those glasses that always look weird on him?”

 

Whoever they were, they knew about the Doctor. At a time before River herself was even meant to. Not good.

 

Getting ready to take a shot, she stepped forward, not even acknowledging the way in which it was mirrored this time.

 

“The Doctor” she confirmed, deciding it was okay for this person to experience the satisfaction of getting to her. It was that last thing they’d be experiencing full stop.

 

“Yes. The Doctor” the woman replied. With the stretched mouth, it was hard to tell whether she was smiling or not despite how evident it was in her voice. She hung onto the “s” for a particularly uncomfortable amount of time. “Doccy, Doccy, Doccy. The good old Oncoming Storm himself. Quite a catch no matter what the face, eh?”

 

The woman was bending forwards, her face getting closer to River’s own until they were practically kissing. Up close she could smell rotting meat and there were one or two wet flies in the moonlight burying into her skin mask and casually buzzing in circles around their meal. Her gun barrel was levelled at the chest cavity and she seriously debated taking the shot before wondering how this woman even knew about the Doctor beforehand.

 

“The man of the moment” the woman continued to gush, little specks of saliva dropping from her static lips as her jaws continued to move beneath them. “Or should I say…oh no, you wouldn’t know anything about that yet, would you?”

 

“Know about what?”

 

“About his future. What he ends up doing.”

 

“I know full well what he ends up doing. We meet for the last time a few eons from now. We have a date on the planet of Darillium. Lovely place, nice views, plenty of colours. He goes off to die. I’ve witnessed his entire timeline, even the parts he thinks I haven’t. So don’t stand there and assume I’m not aware of my own husband’s life because that just makes this trigger even more likely to get pulled.”

 

Now River knew for a fact that the woman was smiling. Her ears rose slightly, causing the metal hooks to pull the skin of her mouth a little further upwards.

 

“I assure you, my dear – you definitely _don’t_ know everything.”

 

Then without so much as another word, the woman turned on her heel with an exaggerated huff and began walking away towards the edge of the roof. River was so temporarily shocked that she almost let her guard down for a second. Almost.

 

“Which is why you’re no fun” the woman continued once she was a good few feet away, her back still to her, “Dear hubby has obviously stopped caring enough to tell you what’s really happened since then. It’s a shame, really. You’re going to end up missing out on this little game I’ve created because of them. I’ll berate them on their selfishness once we get to the end though, don’t you worry.”

 

This person was no longer making any sense and not just in terms of the constant use of the pronoun _they_. River couldn’t take it anymore. Despite the fact that this person hadn’t even tried to attack her as she had obviously done to Psi, something in her psyche was screaming at her to shoot them.

 

“In case you’re thinking of putting a laser through my back, I’d advise against it” the woman half-shouted from the other end of the roof, almost on cue. “My little game has already kicked off in your beloved’s timeline, so stopping my…well, _one_ of my hearts will cause quite the rupture.”

 

Gallifreyan.

 

River had started to guess as much.

 

“Well, I might also have some advice for you, _Master_ ” she hissed. There was no twinkle of recognition in this particular Time Lord’s eyes, meaning there was only one other alternative. “If you’re planning on having another go at the Doctor or his precious Earth, _I’d_ advise against it. He’s not the same person he is in _this_ particular period.”

 

“Oh, I’m counting on it!” came the extra-saccharine reply, every syllable laced with danger. The woman’s hand slowly dug into her pocket and for a second, River was on edge again, fearing a weapon. But no. It was a vortex manipulator, much like her own. _Very_ much like her own.

 

She felt her wrist, realising it was bare.

 

“And by the way,” the woman said with an air of finality, tuning her coordinates, “I’ve a new name now. Missy. Toodles!”

 

In a blinding and sudden flash of light, she was gone.

 

River fumed and fired a few blasts in the direction of where they’d been standing just seconds ago. She’d let them distract her and get close enough to steal something. Never mind Psi, she’d let her _own_ standards slip, too.

 

As police sirens began to echo in the distance, reverberating off every empty alley in her vicinity, she turned to give her deceased partner one last fleeting look of remembrance. She could try and get him to his family, sure, but no doubt the police would arrest her on sight without listening to her first. And then it would be another hundred years in Stormcage for murder.

 

Looks like it would have to be the old-fashioned way.

 

River re-tightened her bag strap and leaped across the adjacent rooftops as the sirens grew ever louder. She had a new vortex manipulator to steal. And a husband to warn.

 

*

 

_Thieves. Always so predictable. All they want is the grand prize and then they’re away. No loyalty. No allegiance. Nothing to toy with. I was hoping for something more with this particular curly-haired criminal. But no. Apparently she’s so fixated on the present that she hasn’t been informed of our best friend’s recent gender change._

_But, Doctors! They have loyalty, they have allegiance. And they have companions. Doctors are much more fun…_


	2. Yaz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rewrote this chapter many times because I was never too happy with how it pans out. I think I've managed to make myself happy this time, but once again it's all down to how much you readers enjoy it. Needless to say, I hope you do.

_Another day, another shift. Yaz had fined a few folk for driving over the speed limits, sorted out one or two street fights…the usual. In reality, the past few months had been focused less on a promotion and more on seeing the Doctor once again._

_She’d seen Ryan and Graham often enough, both smiling politely and inviting her around for tea if she wished, but it was obvious that they too felt as if a major part of their lives had been stripped away. And, to be honest, it sort of had._

_The Doctor had been blunt. Very blunt. Almost to an extent where she sounded fearful. Once again, the day had seemed normal up until that point. She’d left them all at the console for a few minutes so she could go and check something in one of the Tardis’ many rooms, before coming back, the smile completely wiped from her face and her skin incredibly pale. Graham, grandfatherly instincts kicking in, had immediately asked what was wrong, but she refused to answer with anything other than a curt “You need to leave. Now.”_

_Ryan, being Ryan, had obviously attempted to argue, but both Yaz and Graham had already realised that this was completely different from the times they’d been told to do so in the past. Not only was there fear in the Doctor’s eyes, but something…darker. Something that resulted in her only saying goodbye with a promise that she’d return._

_That was the last they’d seen of her._

_So many months ago._

*

The first thing Yaz felt when she came to was a throbbing headache, not at all helped by the cool metal of the floor she was lying on. The inky blackness of her surroundings made it particularly hard to see the size and scope of whatever room she was currently lying in, but even the smallest noise seemed magnified by at least fifty times.

 

She went to move her arm and cover her ache with it, only to realise it wouldn’t budge.

 

She tried to move her other arm. Then both her legs. Neither seemed to respond. In fact, nothing would. Her wrists and ankles refused to twist. Her tongue wouldn’t lift. She could’ve screamed, if only her vocal cords hadn’t seized up.

 

She was paralysed. Oh God, she was paralysed. Forcing herself to rationalise things, she tried to take deep breaths but realised her mouth wouldn’t budge. All she could do instead was lie there motionless and tell herself over and over again that it was just a nightmare. Not being able to cry out was apparently a classic sign, after all.

 

But if it was a dream, then why did the numbing pain in her skull seem so _real_?

 

And…a voice. There was a voice, seemingly coming from a mile away. No, it was getting closer…a woman’s. Not the Doctor’s, unfortunately. With an accent just as thick. It echoed and reverberated inside her head.

 

Her vision was just starting to clear up as she regained the ability to blink, only for a face to pop into her line of sight, at an upside-down angle, which made her wish she’d been blinded too.

 

She’d seen bodies in mortuaries that had a better look, but this woman (or creature, whatever the hell she was), pushed her…some sort of rubbery mask, it seemed…up her head a little bit and smiled widely.

 

“Are you decent?” she asked simply, too much sweetness in her voice for it to be genuine, “I surely hope not. It took quite an amount of stamina to knock you out the way I did and I’d hate if you didn’t at least have a bruise or two to show for it.”

 

A horrible stench reached Yaz’s nose. When was the last time this woman bathed?

 

“For such a silent type, you sure had a good mumble or two in your sleep,” she prattled on, obviously not at all bothered at Yaz’s inability to move whatsoever. Yaz let the words sink in and realised that this was obviously her attacker from earlier. The pieces were starting to come back now…coming home to find Sonya lying on the living room floor, in the same immobile state she was now…her instant panic as she rushed over, attempting to wake her up…a sudden blow to the back of the head…

 

…and now, here in an unknown part of town. No, back up. She didn’t know how long she’d been out. She could be on another part of the _planet_ , for all she knew. Or the universe.

 

“…paralytic toxins from a very rare plant” the woman continued to natter on, unbothered by her recipient’s lack of response. “So at least you know that it’s quality material.”

 

She suddenly looked down, the mismatched and piercing blue pupils behind the husky depths of her mask boring directly into Yaz’s own. Something dangerous flashed within them and Yaz forced herself to stop panicking and start going over the training procedure for kidnap. The so-called “unlikely” event of kidnap, she reminded herself dryly.

 

“Well, you’re certainly a tough crowd, I’ll give you that” the woman asked rhetorically. “Must be that thick skull deflecting all the information. I guess that means I’ll have to up the ante a little then, won’t I?”

 

She gave a theatrical bow.

 

“My name is Missy and I shall be your entertainment for this evening!” was all she said, before striding out of Yaz’s sight, her footsteps slowly receding and getting fainter and fainter. Eventually, everything had gone silent again.

 

Yaz would have frowned had her eyebrows not been firmly fixed in place. Was that it? Had this obviously-insane lady just gotten bored and wandered off?

 

She pondered the name. Missy. Most likely an alibi. She stored the name in the back of her mind for later use. She could give it to the Doctor and they’d be able to track her down for arrest. Well, assuming she could persuade her body to stand up and start running, that was.

 

Somewhere from above there was a nanosecond’s fizzing of electricity and then a blinding flash penetrated her eye sockets and drove a knife straight through her skull, causing fresh waves of pain to erupt. When her eyes finally managed to adapt, she could make out the woman’s outline from a large rafter above her head, her body pitch black as it contrasted against the lighting just inches from her head. The walls were metallic grey and all the lights were your standard halogen, separated in that inch-perfect factory way. There were one or two nearby shipping crates, but all in all it was fairly empty, thus making the entire room cavernous and intimidating.

 

“Now, I could just leave you there until you dry up and die…”

 

Yaz’s heart leaped up her throat.

 

“…but where would my manners as a host be? Here, you must be parched. Have a drink.”

 

The outline conjured a bucket from behind her back and without a second’s hesitation, dumped its load onto Yaz from below. It entered her nostrils and the slight cracks in her mouth and she could finally feel her body begin to respond as she began to splutter as it burned her throat and caused her to erupt into a coughing fit. Whatever she’d been paralysed with had obviously been washed off, as she felt the sensation return to her arms and legs as she stood up, rolled her neck to get rid of any potential cramp. Once she was definitely sure that the liquid all over her was just water and nothing else, she forced herself to look back up towards the rafter, where the woman was still standing there with a patient smirk across her hideous features.

 

It was only then that a second thought crossed her mind. She felt strangely… _light_ ….and it wasn’t just the headache.

 

“Missing something, dear?” came that sneering voice once again. As soon as Yaz put her hand over her eyes so as to shield them from the blinding lights, she realised what it was instantly and her stomach sank.

 

Missy was wearing her luminous police vest, the neon green clashing with the tattered purple of her blouse. The same vest containing Yaz’s notepad, phone…everything. Now she had no way of sending out a message or contacting anyone for help.

 

“If only I had a mirror. I’m sure I’d look incredibly authoritative in this.”

 

The only real alternative was to try and listen to what the woman was saying and hope she would let something slip. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the edges of a large metal door more akin to that of a bank vault than a storage facility. But how could she reach it, let alone open it?

 

“Nice ol’ visual metaphor isn’t it?” Missy rambled on, bending down slightly to peer at Yaz below. “I wear this headache-inducing jacket of yours and suddenly I’m above everyone. Isn’t that how it works?”

 

“No,” Yaz responded, bristling at the insult to her job. Her voice was hoarse from hours of misuse. “We wear those jackets as a way of showing that we’re here to protect innocent people from scum like you.”

 

Missy put a finger to her face and flicked the bottom of her mask, the strange material flapping loosely each time.

 

“Hmmm…then how about we try it another way?”  


Yaz almost shrieked as Missy dived from the rafter, arms splayed out in front of her and her blouse billowing, jumping slightly and shutting her eyes so as to avoid witnessing the impact when the woman inevitably hit the ground.

 

The sickening noise she expected never came. When she dared to squint slightly, she noticed the woman dangling there, face once again on an even level with her own. A length of what she assumed to be bungee cord was tied around Missy’s ankle, suspending her from the beam.

 

“Got you there, didn’t I?” she chuckled, but Yaz was too distracted by something else to come up with a retort. Now that she could see properly, the mask was much too life-like up close for it just to be rubber. The edges were lined with blotches of deep red, like –

 

She only just managed to stop herself from taking a step back in disgust. This woman had her own face loosely tied onto her head like a mask. She forced herself to avoid thinking about the raw muscle and tissue underneath and focused back on what was being said.

 

“I’m no longer at a higher level anymore. I’m on the same level but at a different angle – all topsy-turvy, as it were. If you don’t follow, then please tell me. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s giving monologues to idiots.”

 

“I follow” Yaz responded through gritted teeth, forcing back the urge to both simultaneously vomit and punch the mask right off the vile lady’s face.

 

“My point is, the different in angles creates a difference in perspective. Kind of like you and our dear friend the Doctor, as it were.”

 

Yaz felt like she’d just been paralysed again as her heart stood still. This Missy person knew the Doctor. And she somehow doubted that she’d been kidnapped just so she could help pick out the ideal birthday gift.

 

_But does she know about the relationship that me, Graham and Ryan share with her, or is this question just completely random?_

“I know what you’re thinking” Missy continued, completely nonplussed. “You’re thinking, _does she know about the relationship me and her have?”_

_No, she can’t._

_“No she can’t,_ you reassure yourself. Because the alternative…well, besides having to room up with the Gallifreyan equivalent of a hyperactive squirrel, is that in the whole time you’ve felt safe in her company, you haven’t. After all, how else would a complete Looney Tune be able to recite all your adventures back to you?”

 

_She’s lying._

_“She’s lying,_ you’re no doubt telling yourself. But I assure you, I am not. It’s all in here-“she reached into one of the vest’s pocket, still hanging upside-down, pulling out a small, black notebook. The cover was etched with symbols similar to those Yaz had seen inside the Tardis. “-my trusty diary, where I can record my findings and come to my conclusions. And do you want to know the conclusion I’ve reached, after seeing you and your buddy bunch so happy together?”

 

Yaz’s eyes narrowed as her goals slowly shifted. Forget getting out of here – taking that diary and destroying it was priority number one. If push came to shove, it would involve stealing it from this woman’s hospital room after she was brought into custody on a stretcher.

 

“What?” she murmured, determined to keep her target talking.

 

“I learned that the Doctor is tired. She accepts you on board as a meat shield or flight attendant or what have you – but all the aliens you run from, talk to or discuss over those disgusting boxes of Chinese garbage you chow on for dinner – they bore her. She really needs a companion of the same species. Someone to talk to, yes, but also someone to fight with, someone to be locked in an endless struggle with until the end of time itself.”

 

“You.” Yaz deadpanned, despite her overwhelming realisation that this woman was more than just an old accossiate of the Doctor – she was of the same race. “Well, I’m afraid I don’t think so. She seems perfectly happy whenever I see her and not once has she ever mentioned you. Guess she just doesn’t see old cows with Scottish accents as worthy foes.”

 

Suddenly, the woman began to glare as the fixed smile on her skin-mask became the lowest Yaz had seen it so far.

 

“Sure, you may make her _happy_ ,” she spat, “but when she’s _happy_ , she never sees her true potential. She never sees the real her as I do. When she’s angry, however…well, when she’s angry, that’s when things are _fun_. That’s when mistakes are made. That’s when she isn’t afraid to oust every drooling slack-jaw who puts a foot inside that beloved time machine of hers.”

 

Yaz had to back up slightly as a gnarled finger was shoved directly in her face. She could see the outline of a skeleton right through the skin.

 

“You all hold her down. Her _companions_ ” the word was said as if it were verbal poison. “You act as an anchor, a wall between us both.”

 

Missy’s smile returned, as she took a deep breath, closed her eyes and allowed the saccharine tones to return.

 

“Which is why, my dear, I’m afraid this must all change.”

 

She grabbed hold of Yaz and pulled herself downwards, the cord around her ankles tightening instantly as she did so. Before Yaz could even attempt to remove her, she let go, the force allowing her to go sailing back up onto the rafter.

 

Yaz decided that now was a better time than ever to speak up as she forced as threatening and loud a tone as possible into her voice.

 

“I’m going to give you one chance. Come down here now and let me put handcuffs on you. If you want, you can talk to the Doctor in court. You can tell her all your little delusions there, as well as the fact that you essentially broke at least ten laws involving kidnapping, stalking and invasion of privacy.”

 

Another one of those light, tinkly laughs.

 

“Whilst I love jagged metal cutting into my wrists as much as the next girl, I don’t think these rotting limbs of mine would be able to withstand a whole lot of pressure. I think I’ll have to do without your shiny bracelets, thank you very much.”

 

Yaz breathed heavily through her nose. Worth a try. She made a move to start running – whether to find a set of stairs so as to dive at the woman, or maybe just towards the nearest exit – when the next sentence that reached her ears caught her completely off-guard.

 

“And besides, why wait until I’m in court? I can just tell her right here. In fact, as a gift for suggesting such an idea in the first place, please by all means stay and bear witness to our little conversation.”

 

Yaz couldn’t even manage a strangled “what?” before the heavy metal door at the end of the warehouse slammed open to reveal a figure. There was no denying who it was. Though Yaz’s heart threatened to rise slightly, it quickly fell once again as it walked slowly towards her. Only this time, it fell even lower than before as Missy’s voice echoed once more across the room. .

 

“By the way, that knot in your gut is called _abject fear_. Tastes a bit like chlorine and beetroot, right?”

 

There was no energy in the figure’s stride, no urgency in the way it stared blankly at her, nor the way it turned its head to face her directly as it did so.

 

And when its features were finally thrown into the harsh light, Yaz wanted to cry.

 

The Doctor, her face stretched and distorted by hooks attached to her ears and her teeth fully visible from behind a skin mask of her own, stood before her, a small silver object flashing blue in her ear.

 

_*_

_The policewoman sure is a feisty one. No doubt about it. But regardless, our good friend the Doctor needs to see that feistiness isn’t the only challenge she can face in this new, mundane life of hers. Even if it involves killing said policewoman. Maybe chopping off her pretty little head, or dropping her into a cell full of imprisoned Slitheen that haven’t hunted in years, or maybe a legendary duel to the death between Time Lord and human, just to make it as blatantly obvious as possible who she **really** needs to spend time with…_

_…actually, that’s not a bad idea…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to all the lovely comments last chapter that motivated me to write more. Things don't look good for the Doctor or Yaz do they? And what, pray tell, will happen to the remainder of Team Tardis? Tell me what you thought of this instalment as it really encourages me to write more, regardless of whether it is praise or constructive criticism. 
> 
> 'Til next time!


	3. Yaz Pt.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I loved keeping you all in suspense, but I can't say it was easy typing up a chapter that would make up for all the waiting. But by all means, I would once again appreciate comments, good and bad! These responses really help motivate me knowing what you people both think about it and want to see!

**_One Month Ago…_ **

 

Ever since Yaz had seemingly vanished off the face of the universe, the atmosphere in the Tardis had been completely unbearable - to the point where Graham almost wished he hadn’t even been invited along to help look for her. It was clear that the Doctor’s mind was constantly elsewhere, owing to the way she jumped slightly when addressed, having clearly forgotten that both him and Ryan were currently with her. Normally he would have passed it off as one of her many unusual quirks, but he’d be lying if he didn’t feel affected too.

 

Yaz had always been the decisive one, even more so than the Time Lord herself. Headstrong, brash and wilful, it was no surprise that she and the Doctor had grown so close during their travels. And from the way Graham saw it, the only way was closer. While the Doctor was often too busy with her head in the clouds or explaining a theory at fifty thousand words a minute, he would notice a slight glint in Yaz’s eyes. A glint that reminded him painfully of the way Grace used to look at him and, apparently, the way he used to look at her, too.

 

But he’d paid it little attention at the time and there were more important things to be focusing on now. Such as why the Doctor had been halfway through entering yet another desperate set of coordinates into the console only for her to then release a pitiful moan and drop to her knees on the metallic floor. Ryan, who had also been watching from afar, rushed over to her at the exact same second he did and knelt by her side.

 

“What’s wrong?” Ryan asked, panic seeping into his voice.

 

“Nothin’…” the Doctor just mumbled in response, not looking up at either of them and speaking as if a part of her soul had died, “…I’m fine…”

 

“You definitely ain’t fine, Doc” Graham spoke up, deciding now was as best a time as ever to admit it, “And we all know why. But we’ll find Yaz, eventually. She’s a tough cookie, she can look after herself.”

 

The Doctor didn’t reply for what was possibly the most painful handful of seconds in Graham’s life.

 

“I’ve realised something” she mumbled, still not raising her head.

 

Her tone of voice certainly wasn’t raising Graham’s spirits.

 

“Yeah?”

 

The Doctor’s mouth opened slightly as if she were ready to explain something new, but then snapped shut. This in itself was unusual, as once the Doctor learned something, the floodgates of conversation could never remain closed.

 

“Yeah?” Ryan mimicked Graham in an attempt to encourage her into speaking. Nothing.

 

“Please Doc, you’re scarin’ us ‘ere” Graham tried, pulling a smile despite how he himself wasn’t even sure he was joking.

 

That seemed to do the trick. The blonde-haired woman slowly waved away his hand of help and stood back up again, taking a deep, shuddering breath. She leaned back against the console, facing them as she looked them both in the eye, one at a time.

 

“I’m going to tell you guys something I never thought I’d have to talk about. Something from before I even had this face.”

 

Graham instantly knew that this was serious. Sure, her past “regenerations” as she called them were sometimes referred to off-handedly, but never involved in an exchange that involved such an apparently dire subject.

 

The Doctor took another breath and carried on.

 

“Before I looked like this, I was a white-haired, Scottish man. Remember when I told you that?”

 

Both he and Ryan nodded. How could either of them forget?

 

“I ended up changing face as a result of a large-scale battle involving enemies of mine called the Cybermen. At the time, I had by my side a woman named Missy. Another Time Lord who had once been an old friend. Who had then been an enemy. Then, somehow, been a friend again.”

 

It took a few seconds for Graham to grasp the structure of that sentence, let alone follow the logic, but he just offered another encouraging nod and let her carry on.

 

“Partway through our mishap she met one of her own past regenerations. I’ve never exactly warned you of the dangers of meeting yourself when it comes to time travel. It can tear apart an entire timeline. You can cease to exist.”

 

She swallowed thickly.

 

“And that’s what happened to Missy. She died. I don’t know how, I may never know, but… I felt her die. It’s an ability our species have. Right there and then, surrounded by armies of cyborgs, I realised I was now well and truly the only surviving member of my species.”

 

“Listen Doc, I know that’s gotta be hard, but…it’s like ya told me, ya know? Even if ya lose someone, ya still can’t assume ya gonna lose everybody…”

The Doctor raised her hand. It was a light gesture, but somehow had a scarily large amount of authority behind it. He stopped talking immediately.

 

“That’s not what I’m trying to tell you. What’s important was what happened after, when I’d managed to get rid of the Cybermen and was ready to regenerate. Well, die. I never thought I’d come back after that.”

 

Judging by the look on Ryan’s face, he too was experiencing the sudden shock Graham was. The Doctor didn’t seem to notice, absorbed in her story.

 

“I searched for any trace of her body, but found none. And when I came to the very edge of the area – we were on a ship, you see – it was there, on the wall.”

 

Silence hung like a ton of bricks over their heads. Eventually, it was Ryan who dared to speak up.

 

“What was it?”

 

The Doctor’s head rose once again to look at the addressee, who almost wilted under her saddened gaze.

 

“Her face. Not the eyes, tongue or any organs, mind you. Just the skin. The flesh on the back seemed to be acting as a sort of temporary glue as it hung there.”

 

Graham felt vaguely ill.

 

“So I took it and I put in here. The Tardis. I know what you’re thinking. That’s a horrible, indecent thing to do. And if I’d found it here and now, when I wasn’t so absolutely alone, then I’d most likely agree. But I let emotion take over…something I thought I’d managed to stop happening. I shut it up in the Tardis’ physical archive, where I also store all other items or objects that help it expand its database.”

 

More silence. Graham hadn’t a clue where this was going anymore, but at the same time wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.

 

“Then, there was the day we last met. How long ago was that?”

 

The sudden question caught him off guard.

 

“Oh, uh…three months ago. Late January, I think. And when you say you were alone, do you mean really alone? As in, no-one else to turn to?”

 

The Doctor acknowledged his response, but deigned to answer the question.

 

“Last January. I was just doing some routine checks before we left, you know, the usual. The ol’ girl had been acting a tad odd for about a week beforehand so I went to locate a malfunction. I tracked it to the archive. And…”

 

Another slight swallow which was more akin to a gulp.

 

“The door was half-open and the face was gone. The Tardis hadn’t located a malfunction. The door had been deliberately damaged so someone or something could gain entry. I didn’t know what to do.”

 

Graham could feel himself blanche.

 

“So what you’re sayin’ is, someone managed to break in?” he managed, feeling himself begin to sweat. There was nothing more he wanted in the world right now than to have a sit-down. “Who?”

 

“Of course the most obvious answer would be the face’s owner. But if she’d somehow managed to enter my place of living, there’d be no way I wouldn’t have felt it. So no, I’m still not sure. And then, if that wasn’t bad enough, Yaz goes missing. Both of these events have happened in such a short span of time that it would be an extreme coincidence. And I don’t like coincidences.”

“So what you’re saying is, someone broke into the Tardis – possibly your dead friend, but we don’t know – then that same someone took Yaz? For what?” Ryan piped up.

 

“Well, that’s why you two are here” the Doctor said, newfound determination on her features. It was easy to tell that getting the weight of her secret off of her chest had helped her exponentially, for which Graham was glad. She turned back around, before starting fiddle with the controls and press buttons with much more vigour. “To help me find out.”

 

*

 

**_Now…_ **

Yaz backed up as what the disfigured Doctor started slowly striding towards her, the fixed grin of her mask not changing. She hated pleading, especially after years of bullying from both Izzy Flint and her own sister, but what was she to do? Especially when one of the people that had inspired her most to be braver was possibly brainwashed.

 

“Doctor…c’mon, please snap out of it…”

 

“I’m afraid sweet-talking isn’t going to be rousingly effective” came that voice from above, but Yaz forced herself to ignore it. Missy was obviously trying to throw her off balance and distract her. “Though it is by all means entertaining. If you’re planning on telling her your last wishes, I’m afraid she won’t be able to hear them before she tears your heart out through your stomach. That new earring of hers-“

 

Yaz’s eyes were instantly drawn to the strange device in the Doctor’s left ear.

 

“-is a present from a planet called Mondas. Lovely place, even if they do have a habit of wanting to convert all their inhabitants into emotionless entities.”

 

Yaz was only half-listening, too busy forcing herself to calm down again.

 

“Here, I’ll demonstrate my point” Missy cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted down towards the other Time Lord. “Doctor, could you be a dear and kill the annoying human for me? Thank you.”

 

Yaz could only muster a guttural cry as the faceless Doctor leaped at her, flecks of drool flying from her exposed teeth as her grey coat flew out behind her. There was no recognition on her features, no acknowledgement in her eyes besides the way a starved vulture would view its prey. They both went sprawling backwards and Yaz was knocked to the floor, feeling a pair of hands wrapping around her throat and cutting off her oxygen supply.

 

She couldn’t breathe. Everything was starting to go fuzzy. Her eyes felt ready to burst. One of her hands was trapped underneath the Doctor’s leg. Usually, she thought grimly, she might have enjoyed something like this.

 

As skinny as the Doctor looked, she was surprisingly strong. Which meant that it was time to resort to desperate measures. Praying that she’d be forgiven once they got out of this mess, Yaz summoned what strength she had left and used her free hand to punch the Doctor in the face as hard as she could. Whilst there was no sound of pain, the lobotomised Time Lord was pushed backwards, temporarily losing her balance. In the few seconds that followed, Yaz managed to manoeuvre her body so that her leg was directly in the path of the Doctor’s stumbling. It was rousingly effective, as her enemy was tripped instantly, landing face-down on the metal floor.

 

Utilizing the sparse amount of time she had to get her bearings, she looked in the direction of the door. It was open. Maybe she could find a way out and get Ryan and Graham. Tell them what had happened and come back to stop this evil woman somehow.

 

A slight groaning sound behind her alerted her to the fact that the Doctor was back on her feet again and she decided it was high time she did what Team Tardis had always done best. Run.

 

Through one door. And into an entirely different section of the building, which was, admittedly, much more full. Aisles of crates and containers provided the perfect cover to hide behind, but neither would it exactly do her much good should some fall on her.

 

 _“Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide…”_ drifted that sing-song voice, still somehow up above her. She spared a second to look upwards to see how Missy could possibly have followed her. The answer was a large hole in the wall up near the ceiling, which had most likely been blasted into existence judging by its charred, blackened edges. The beam the woman had been switched out for a much more suitable catwalk. And, just to rub it all in, she’d managed to pull out a bag of popcorn from her bottomless inner pocket.

 

Gritting her teeth, Yaz dived behind a stack of palettes that was hopefully out of Missy’s line of sight as the door slammed open again and the silhouette of the Doctor was bearing down on her. Her heart was beating to such an extent that she was amazed it wasn’t audible as she put a hand over her mouth in the fleeting belief that her breathing might give her away.

 

The Doctor had said she possessed some increased abilities that humans lacked. Did that include superior hearing? She really, for the sake of both their lives, hoped she didn’t.

 

Every slight noise within the cavernous warehouse seemed magnified as heavy footfalls approached her hiding spot. Louder. Louder. And then –

 

They stopped. For an unusually large amount of time. Yaz didn’t even dare breathe in the fear that it would give her away, but the silence was short-lived as something behind her back exploded and everything started moving again. The Doctor had managed to swing an entire _fist_ through of the stack’s palettes, causing chips and debris to rain down as she kicked Yaz in the stomach as she attempted to turn around. Missy continued to rant aimlessly, locked in her own little world, as Yaz had to reach back into her police training and fend for her life.

 

 _“It’s the battle of the generation!”_ she half-screeched, shovelling popcorn into the remains of her mouth, _“Cain and Abel!”_

The Doctor threw a punch, leaning forwards as she did so. Yaz caught her fist and retaliated by punching her in the stomach, earning a slight wheezing sound from her target as she did so.

 

_“David and Goliath!”_

Yaz was forced back once again as the Doctor whipped out a particularly sharp-looking knitting needle from her own pocket and took a swipe. And to think that the knitting was Yaz’s own suggestion so as to stop her from fidgeting all the time.

 

 _“Batman and Superman!_ Wait, that was meant to be rubbish, wasn’t it _?”_

The edge of the needle narrowly missed Yaz’s stomach and managed to tear the edge of her shirt. If she had her damn jacket, she’d have more protection and could end the fight more easily.

 

“ _The “i” before the “e” except after the “c”!”_

As she prepared to dodge a second time, a ridiculously dangerous thought hit her. What if she let the Doctor win? Just stood there and let her hurt her? It wasn’t entirely suicidal – the Doctor had mentioned before that she wasn’t as prone to psychic manipulation as most other aliens, so if the Time Lord she once knew was given the chance to end the life of one of her “fam”, then surely her humanity would take over?

 

Yaz forced any nagging doubts into the back of her mind, determined to be as decisive as she always was. The Doctor would come through. She knew it.

 

She lowered her arms and stood tall, making herself as open and inviting a target as possible. The Doctor temporarily stopped too, needle in hand, the device in her ear obviously attempting to make sense of the situation. Even Missy had gone silent.

 

_Come on…come and have a go…I’m right here, have a stab…_

Eventually the device evidently detected the advantage, the Doctor ever-so-calmly striding towards her, needle upside-down in hr hand and poised like a knife. Yaz clamped her eyes shut and prayed to every God she’d ever heard of, both on Earth and during their past travels, that what she was doing would work.

 

She jumped slightly at the slight banging sound that suddenly erupted in front of her but didn’t open her eyes until she felt something wet splash against her face. When she dared to open them, time seemed to slow as she took notice that whatever she was covered in was bright red and smelled like iron. Blood. Blood that had, as she had realised once her mind caught up with the situation and reverted back to panic stations, burst from the gaping hole in the Doctor’s upper chest. Something planted inside it had obviously exploded, but Yaz didn’t bare it a single thought as she stood transfixed at the sight.

In the past, she never would have considered herself a screamer. But seeing one of her closest friends in this state, definitely dying before her very eyes, could only be summed up with a sudden shriek that could have reverberated off every wall in a six mile radius.

 

She didn’t notice Missy climbing down from the catwalk behind her, too busy rushing over as the Doctor collapsed to the floor, nor notice the syringe the woman was pulling from her boot until it was being jabbed into her neck. Things were going blurry once again and she let the tears flow freely as the sensation once again began to leave all her limbs.

 

Using the final reserves of her strength, she ignored the shadow hanging over them both, instead reaching out and placing her hand over the Doctor’s own.

 

“Sorry…” she whispered as her mind began to ebb into unconsciousness, “couldn’t…help you…couldn’t save…”

 

And that was the last of her thoughts for the time being as the last speck of light in her vision was entombed by the release of inky blackness.

 

*

_So I helped direct a play today. Great show. Plenty of fire, passion, violence…even a little improvised romance, if you ask me. Beautiful stuff. But my review still stands. The main character really needs to pick up her act - doing all that dark stuff herself, not with me whispering hypnotic little suggestions into her ear every second. Give her a few hours in a healing coma and I’m sure that the gaping hole I’ve had to put through her hearts with such a negative opinion will no doubt spur her on._

_Anyway, the final curtain has fell and my actors are now hungry. All we have to do is invite the rest of the cast and crew around and we’ll have a lovely dinner together._

_And trust me. The food will be **fantastic** …_


	4. Graham and Ryan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't written a whole lot from Ryan's perspective because I always thought that Graham was more fun. Sorry, Ryan fans!

**_Three weeks ago…_ **

****

The Doctor had found something. Something that was evidently big enough to warrant a much larger amount of skipping around the console than Graham had become accustomed to since Yaz’s disappearance. Whilst her infectious excitement often rubbed off on anyone in the same room as her – whether willingly or not – Graham tried his best to repress his own slightly. Not that he wasn’t hopeful. He just wanted any disappointment to be less crushing.

 

The first sign he’d got that something was up was when the Doctor greeted both him and Ryan that morning with a spring in her step and her mouth curving upwards. Not quite a smile, but there was still something there.

 

“Just got a message from River” she burst out without being prompted. At least she was back to her usual talkative self. It seemed like she’d been holding the fact in for hours. “A strange woman wearing her own face as a mask met her on a rooftop in the middle of the night when she was out during one of her jobs. Sound similar to our mystery figure?”

 

“So is it that Missy, then? Back from the dead?” Ryan asked.

 

The Doctor’s face scrunched. God, how Graham had missed that look.

 

“Apparently that was the name the woman gave, yes,” she answered finally, but shrugging it off she added, “but there’s no real way of knowing for definite yet. It could easily be an impersonator.”

 

She flipped a switch and the Tardis started humming rhythmically as they started to move.

 

“Still. Love a good mystery. Now then –“

 

She started running in circles for about the fifth time that hour, smile returning on her features as she started to type in new coordinates and rambling to herself. Graham leaned back, allowing his own slight smile to appear as he witnessed the old Doctor he remembered so fondly returning.

 

“River had her vortex manipulator linked to a database in case it was stolen…she tracks it back…messages me…and tells me that it was last used to travel to… _Stormcage_?”

 

“Stormcage?” Ryan repeated incredulously. “Cool name, like.”

 

Graham snorted sarcastically. “Sounds a real friendly place, I’m sure.”

 

“Trust me Ryan; it’s a bit less than _cool_. Maximum security prisons don’t exactly tend to be the height of _coolness_ in any culture.” She paused for a second. “Cool. _Cool_. Weird word. Rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it?”

 

Graham cleared his throat. “You were saying, Doc?”

 

“Right!” she responded, clapping her hands together and coming back down the earth. The telltale signs of the Tardis materialising told them that they were reaching their destination.”Anyway, Stormcage is meant for the worst of the worst. River was once serving time there for killing me. As you might guess, I came back to life, but that story’s a bit too long for now. The thing is, stay close to me. You don’t know what Missy – or whoever they are – has done to this place since they got here.”

 

They made their way to the doors.

 

“Any questions?”

 

Graham almost raised his hand, but stopped and put it back down when he remembered that he could just casually ask no problem.

 

“Who’s this River person you keep mentioning?”

 

The Doctor was worryingly silent for a few seconds, but responded in the same jovial tone.

 

“An old acquaintance of mine. Shall we get cracking, then?”

 

She flung the doors open and they cautiously stepped out.

 

Even though Graham had never been before, he could tell that this prison had clearly seen better days. Loose wires hung from the ceiling, the majority of the lights randomly flickered and twitched, briefly illuminating the puddles of leaking pipes in sharp strikes.

 

Not to mention that all the cells of the corridor they were standing in were currently empty.

 

“Must be abandoned” he thought out loud.

 

“Right fam, I know this sounds incredibly irresponsible of me, but I think we ought to split up. Ryan, you and Graham head in _that_ direction –“she pointed behind the Tardis, “-and I’ll take the other way. The complex is roughly in the shape of a circle, so even if one of us finds something and for whatever reason we can’t regroup, we should still meet up in the middle.”

 

“Look…Doc…not to be a nag or anything, but this sounds incredibly unsafe, even by our usual standards” Graham argued, deciding to break the forming tension. “We’ve just established that this Missy woman is as unstable as all hell, so really we’d be better with strength in numbers, wouldn’t we?”

 

The Doctor sighed.

 

“I know. It probably is. But as with the Dalek, this is personal for me. And I don’t want you to see the person I can become when things are too close to my hearts.”

 

She looked him directly in the eyes, and he decided that it was best to heed her advice and get moving. Every second wasted in this discussion could be another second Yaz spent in a potentially life-threatening situation.

 

“Please, Graham. You lot are my friends. And I want it to stay that way when all this is over.”

 

Graham just nodded and motioned for Ryan to follow. The two continued walking at a hurried pace even once they had the Doctor’s own footsteps recede, her words simultaneously echoing in both their minds.

  
*

 

**_Now…_ **

****

Graham groaned and reached subconsciously for Grace, before remembering all too late that he’d never actually succeed in feeling her ever again. He sat up dejectedly, before a pain not unlike a hangover spread through his temples.

 

Ow. His head. Man, did he have one glass of scotch too many or something?

 

Oh, wait. It was call coming back to him now. He’d been lying on the floor of an intergalactic prison. Well, _ex_ -intergalactic prison, anyway. He’d been wandering down a corridor with Ryan, when –

 

Wait a minute. Where was Ryan?

 

He looked both behind and front of himself, but his eyes were met with nothing but the usual monotonous grey rows of open cell doors and half-functional lights.

 

The penetrating squeal of microphone feedback whined in his ears as all the speakers in the area seemed to wake from their century-long coma and broadcast a thick Scottish voice.

 

_“Finally. I was wondering when you were going to wake up, bus driver. Your snoring was noisy enough to rival the exhaust pipe of any starship engine, honestly. Could barely hear myself think.”_

This voice was too suspicious to not be the person who’s taken Yaz. But what did they want? And he still had no answer as to where Ryan went. Unless…

 

Cold dread iced his veins. This woman could have Ryan. His grandson. The closest thing to a child he’d ever have.

 

He forced himself to sound as unbothered as possible as he spotted a nearby camera and looked directly into its dark, unblinking lens as he spoke.

 

“Who are you and where is the young man I was just with?”  


A light chuckle erupted from the speakers and the feedback whined again slightly.

 

_“Let’s disperse with the pleasantries, shall we? I know who you are, Mister O’ Brien. And yes, I do know the whereabouts of your dear grandson, too. That is unless you’re referring to another young man, because I’m afraid to say I’ve murdered millions of those in my lifetime. You might have to dig through the wreckage of quite a few planets to find their corpse if that’s the case.”_

Graham’s fist dug into his palm. Forget scared. He was _angry_.

 

“Give me my grandson back. Now.”

 

_“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic. You can have him free of charge so long as you take my little walk of faith, as I like to call it.”_

A string of gaudy, multicoloured fairy lights that had been scattered along the walls of wherever he’d wound up in blinked to life, illuminating the path ahead more clearly.

 

_“I was originally planning on naming it the Journey of the Main of Memory, but it was a bit too cliché, from my point of view. Not to mention overly-long. Imagine if I went public with this attraction and had to cram it all onto the merchandise!”_

Graham, not even bothering to be cautious, started walking. His shoes echoed off every surface. Determination to get to Ryan fuelled his every move.

 

Metres on, and the fairly lights just kept going. Stretch after stretch after stretch of corridor, until…

 

Something was on the floor in front of him, paper thin and stark white. No, there was more than one. Photos.

 

He let curiosity get the better of him and bent down, flipping one of them over. What he found he almost couldn’t believe.

 

The first was a photo of him and Grace in Paris, one that he thought he’d lost ages ago. They were both in front of the Eiffel Tower, Graham with his arm over her shoulder. Both of them wore thick scarves against the autumn winds and they were smiling, locked forever in that single moment.

 

Graham didn’t realise what was welling up inside of him until he felt a solitary tear leave his eye and roll down his cheek. He should have burnt all the photos when she died to save himself the pain. In all fairness, the only reason he probably hadn’t was because he’d wondered whether Ryan wanted any of them.

 

The arrival of their next big adventure had prevented that conversation, as did the next. They’d never gotten the chance to properly talk things through.

 

He decided to pocket the photo, scanning every last detail with a sad smile as he was about to do so. Look at the sun. Look at the trees, leaning to the right against the force of the breeze. Look at the crowds, bustling about in their daily lives, tourists and natives alike-

 

His eye was caught by someone in the background. A woman. She was looking directly at the camera, a few metres behind him and Grace, smiling a tight and hollow smile that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on edge. Her eye sockets seemed empty, no warmth meeting her small, dilated pupils. A hat covered in fake fruit covered the majority of her thin, sunken, misshapen face and she wore a horribly garish purple blouse. He didn’t remember seeing anyone who looked like _that_ when the picture was taken.

 

Disturbingly intrigued, he picked up another photo from the damp concrete floor. This one was just of him, smiling proudly in his driver’s uniform, just before his first ever shift. His bus was right behind him and he took another closer look. Once again, there the woman was. She was further away this time, standing a few metres from the bus’ engine, this time with her head cocked slightly to her side and her skin looking thin.

 

Graham narrowed his eyes. Not thin. Taunt. Like it was being pulled by something.

 

He snatched up the third and final photo and his heart almost stopped as he recognised the event. It was the day he’d met Ryan and his parents when he and Grace first started dating. Sure enough, there Ryan was, his own smile tight-lipped and forced, not yet having accepted his new grandfather. He and Grace looked as happy as ever. Grace had one arm around him, the other around Aaron.

 

And in the background, by the living room door, a single arm covered by a tatty dirtied shirt sleeve and purple fabric, rested on the wall after having stretched itself around the corner. Once again, seemingly unnoticed by any off the picture’s participants. 

 

_“Anything interesting?”_

“Is this some kind of trick?” Graham addressed the ceiling, despite his voice threatening to waver. “Just editing yourself into my old photos to make it seem like you’ve been watching me all along?”

 

_“Well…yes and no. First off, I’m not going to ruin the surprise and say whether they are edited or not. If they were edited, they’d be too expertly done for any of your earth computers to detect a forgery, and if they weren’t, then that’s just the fault of your own lack of awareness. Don’t feel too bad. It’s part of being human, unfortunately.”_

“Yeah, well, another part when it comes to being human is getting angry” Graham chided through gritted teeth, “Which you’re gonna learn real quick if you don’t cut it out right now and give me my grandson.”

 

_“Ooh, aren’t you scary?”_

“Just tell me where I can find you and you’ll witness it firsthand, mate.”

 

Missy completely ignored this statement. _“It’s a bit of a shame that the Doctor never sees this side of you, isn’t it? Just like how you never see the real side of her.”_

The Doctor’s words from the last time they’d spoke echoed in the recesses of his memory. _I don’t want you to see the person I can become when things are too close to my hearts._ There was no longer any doubt in his mind that this was the Missy woman and not a fake – only another Time Lord could have known more about the Doctor than they did. He hoped.

 

_“The anger. The rage. The fire. The fury of a Time Lady. The Oncoming Storm, as our old tin-planted friends the Daleks like to put it. Not the bouncy moron who parades around with apes in an ugly old phone box.”_

Graham let her keep talking as he dropped the photos back onto the ground and continued to walk along the lit path, taking deliberate effort to stand on them as he did so.

 

_“I’ve been watching you for a long time, O’Brien. The old one. The mature one. The one who has to confront the kids with reality when they get too overexcited. Surely you can understand tiredness, can’t you? Well imagine how the Doctor must feel once the sugar wears off.”_

The string of fairy lights ended in a seemingly random segment of the hall. Graham stopped at the end of the string, leaning against the wall and trying to catch his breath, unaware he’d even been panting.

 

_“She’s close to the end with you bottom-feeders. And all I want to do is give her the good ol’ therapeutic push. Then you can sit back, relax and watch the good times roll as she and Auntie Missy get busy with destroying entire star systems in our final showdown!”_

“So that’s your plan, then? Just tick the Doc off and let yourself get killed?”

 

There was a short silence that followed his words, permeated only by a dripping pipe somewhere in the vicinity.

 

_“Somewhat. But it won’t just be me who’ll get the privilege of fighting her at her angriest. Everyone else will, too. Skaro. Mondas. Sontar. Entire civilisations will get the wars they dreamed of, as well as the glorious end they so wanted, too. I’m here to help her, O’Brien. To make sure that she can die happy, knowing that she’s finally managed to actually prevent evil in this universe.”_

Another short silence.

 

_“Hell, I know you humans and your fascination with online videos. Maybe I’ll keep one of you three alive so you can stream it onto YouTube or whatever the hell you call it.”_

Graham took this all in. This woman wanted to quite possibly kill him, Yaz and Ryan just to get the Doctor angry. And if there was one thing that everyone besides Missy apparently didn’t want, it was an angry Doctor.

 

“Sorry mate, but I’m not buying it” he shouted a bit louder than necessary, seeing if he could goad her into letting more information slip. “As insignificant as we can seem to you, we’re more than just punch lines in your stale little act.”

 

_“Actually…”_

The floor beneath Graham’s feet shifted and he began to drop through the trapdoor planted beneath the end of the fairy light chain.

 

_“…you kind of are!”_

He cried out in terror; one long, continuous note that carried the entire time he plummeted into the abyss.

 

*

 

Once she was sure that the ape-man had dropped, she stole a quick glance away from the monitors to check on how his equally-brain dead offspring was handling it. Judging by the way he was fighting against the makeshift rope restraints tying his arms and legs to the office chair and the brooch gag in his mouth, not very well. He was getting very irritating. Not to mention that there’d no doubt be quite a large amount of saliva all over her item of clothing by now.

 

She leaned across from her own chair and took the brooch away. Evidently not, it seemed, as he’d been reserving all his saliva to spit at her the moment it was out of his pie-hole. Any of her past regenerations would have been furious at that, but one of the upsides of having your face removed was that the pain receptors in the flesh underneath were heightened to the point where you could barely feel anything that wasn’t extreme agony every time another piece began to rot off. She wiped her mask with her free hand, upsetting it slightly so that it moved a little to the left across her face and caused one of the eyeholes to become very hard to see out of.

 

Oh, how she wished she had a camera to snap the speed at which the human’s expression changed at this. Angry and defiant just seconds ago, now queasy and slightly terrified now.

 

“Don’t worry” she assured him, letting her smile grow as she stood up and switched off the security monitors. “You dear old granddad isn’t dead. Yet. He’s just gone to get changed for our dinner this evening. He’ll be back soon, I assure you.”

 

“…the hell are you talking about, you freak?” the lad managed eventually.

 

“Everything’s planned in here” she explained with the air of a parent telling off her incredibly slow three year-old. Deciding it wouldn’t do any harm, she pulled out her little black diary. “As I explained to your policewoman friend, these contain many of her notes that I happened to find when I was taking back my…ah…property from her precious Tardis. Countless scrawling of the ways in which she wishes both you and the rest of the universe was putty in her hands. Moulding to her will. Burning into ashes and rebuilding them to fit her own image. She helped give me a new perspective on my past, all those years ago. Now it’s my turn to help _her_.”

 

 

She leaned back against the console as the last few lights flickered out.

 

“Hmm…” she mused aloud, “guess it might be too late to rename myself from _the Mistress_ to _the Poet!_ ”

 

Ryan was silent, mainly out of disbelief, but also out of a lack of anything to say. How _could_ you respond to someone so ludicrously unhinged?  


A shrill and distorted beeping sound filled the air, causing him to jump slightly in the chair and the area that might have once been covered by Missy’s eyebrows to rise slightly. She rolled back her sleeve and peered down at her scratched, grime-coated Kermit the Frog watch.

 

“Looks like that’s all we’ve got time for” she said casually, pulling out her final syringe. “We’ll continue this discussion over our meal, shall we?”

 

He struggled and yelled many colourful obscenities that she’d never even heard of before. Of course he did. But since he lacked the ability to properly move any of his limbs, things were certainly easier. And then he started drooling in his sleep. Actually _drooling_. Never before did she think she’d ever see the missing link between Stone Age human and twentieth century human.

 

*

 

_I’ve decided it was best I didn’t tell him how long he and his granddaddy had really been out, lest his brain melted all over my shoes. Not that it wouldn’t have been a sight to behold, just that what with all the painstaking effort I’ve put into organising our little social get-together, letting him die beforehand would just be rude._

_Now. Hopefully the dish of the night hasn’t burned while I was gone and then we can all enjoy our meals. I’ve made it with the Doctor in mind…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd just like to say that next chapter will be all from the perspective of our favourite Time Lady. I hope you've been engaged enough to look forward to the forthcoming finale. I'll especially be focusing on how Missy had her own face removed and how the Doctor was converted into an equally-hideous, mind-controlled zombie. 
> 
> Do you like the way I wrote using both the past and the present to build the story? I just thought it would make it more unpredictable and enjoyable. Hell, do you generally like the story so far? Any comments, either compliments or constructive criticism, are equally welcome - once again, they are fantastic motivation for me to both improve and continue. See y'all soon!


	5. The Doctor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well...I sure do hope this was worth the much longer-than-usual wait.

**_Three weeks ago…_ **

 

She needed peace and quiet. She needed time to enter her mind palace, consider the facts and work out how to solve this problem.

 

At least that was how she justified abandoning Graham and Ryan to herself.

 

She had no doubt that what they’d most likely find wouldn’t be as interesting or as important as what she would – and not, thankfully, as dangerous either. Being a Time Lady herself, Missy was bound to already guess which way she’d choose to walk just by examining the nuances from their time as friends.

 

Eons and eons ago.

 

She blocked it all out and kept walking. They were never going to become friends again. The Untempered Schism had seen to that and the sooner she could fully mute all her nagging, useless hopes, the more she could focus on facing her just like she would with any other Dalek or Cyberman. With the usual intelligence and flair; not having to push back recurring delusions of what if in the meantime.

 

One point she’d always give to her ol’ attack-eyebrows incarnation was that he managed to mask his feelings incredibly well with sharp sarcasm and stony glares. Her, not so much.

 

She noticed one of the lights ahead flickering much more rapidly in an attempt to both turn and remain on. Someone was standing in that area and she could warrant a pretty safe bet as to whom.

 

“Missy?” she called out, praying that there were no sounds of hopefulness in her voice. The corner was silent for a few seconds more until the woman herself stepped from the shadows, spinning her umbrella around her arm and finally letting it rest on her shoulder.

 

“The one and only” the other woman called out with such casualness, that the Doctor let her guard down for a split second too long. The silvery flash of taser cords didn’t even register in her mind until she was forced to experience the sensation of three hundred volts being let loose inside her body. Every organ seemed to seize up at once and she barely had enough to cry out before she collapsed to the ground, her gasps for breath becoming shallower and shallower.

 

All that her fading vision registered was a pair of heeled black boots, one covered in dirt and grime, stepping just inches away from her face. Then that same filthy boot came swinging in and everything was black.

 

*

 

_Even if our dear friend appears to have become slimmer, I’m afraid that I still remained unconvinced that she hasn’t gotten heavier over the past few incarnations. Maybe it’s that massive ego she’s been lugging around. It took quite a tremendous amount of dragging to finally shift her limp body from the corridor to the security office where everything had been set up. The table prepped. The tools ready. The mask-making process approved from my own personal experience._

_Now, let’s begin…shall we?_

 

*

 

**_Now…_ **

 

The process of her eyes opening once her consciousness returned was slow. Groggy. Hazy. The lighting that penetrated her eyelids was familiar, but all she could make out were vague shapes. Not to mention an echo of a voice in her ears.

 

_“…trust me; the service here is top notch…”_

 

That sounded like someone. But who? She cursed herself. With a brain her size, it was nearly a crime not to remember something so basic.

 

_“…but before we eat, I’m afraid we have few skeletons in the cupboard that need to be shaken down first. And maybe dry-cleaned, depending on how rotten they are…”_

 

 

It was a woman’s voice. Scottish. Sneering. Cynical.

 

At least most of the shapes were starting to become more detailed. There were three other people with her, sitting around a rectangular table. In front of each person was a dish, all covered with a silver lid.

 

_“…someone maybe want to put her hand in some warm water or something?”_

 

Her brain kicked into gear and she finally regained the notion to analyse what was going on around her.

 

The results were…well, they weren’t good, to be honest.

 

It was Missy. Smiling down at her with a face that vaguely resembled a three-week old lizard carcass that had been put through a blender and left out to dry. That made enough sense, she supposed, what with the woman being the one who rendered her unconscious in the first place. Speaking of places…they were in the Tardis library. Her Tardis library. On the plus side, this meant that in the event of a quick escape, she and the gang would have the home-team advantage. On the down side, it also meant that the Tardis had somehow allowed her entry, whether willingly or not.

 

Not to mention that her face also really stung, constantly causing a slight twinge of pin to affect her whenever the air changed direction for some reason.

 

She went to crane her neck, when she felt a familiar tugging. She was tied to her chair. Granted, a comfortable chair, but people who tied you to things had either one of two motives. The malevolent way, which often resulted in someone getting hurt and-slash-or maimed, or what she had since come to call the “River” way, which resulted in…something else. That could easily end in hurt or maiming too, now that she thought about it.

 

A muted murmur caught her ears as she tested her wrists and legs, which had also been bound. She looked as upwards as the restraints would allow, noticing all three of her arm in a similar situation as her. All were tied with equal amounts of rope and all had equal looks of terror and panic in their eyes. But the one thing that caught her attention was the way their entire faces were swathed in mummy-like bandages, save for two small gaps to see out of. Bandages that had a giant red patch in the middle.

 

She somewhat doubted that it was a design choice.

 

Her anger and curiosity wrestled. Right now, it was anyone’s guess as to which would take prominence over the other. Missy, whose smile somehow managed to stretch even wider – to the point where the edges of her red raw gums vanished behind the mouth area of her mask – decided to break the ice.

 

“Hello” she smiled, giving a light and cheery wave that wasn’t returned. “Love the new body, by the way. Except maybe the rainbow shirt.”

 

The Doctor swallowed back a load of bile in the back of her throat that she didn’t even realise had been rising until then. When Missy finally stepped further into the light, her heeled boots echoing off the ground, the weak output from a few of the shelving lights flung her horrendous face mask into stark contrast against the rest of her outfit.

 

“I swear Missy, if you touch a hair on their heads, I will rip you apart atom by ato-“ she began, more sharp needles erupting around the jaw area.

 

Missy’s single raised hand was enough to stop her mid-growl. Out of the corner of her eye she could see her companions’ glances become confused and somewhat scared, not truly used to this side of her personality. But she could deal with that later, once she managed to get them to safety.

 

“I wouldn’t get up just yet, if I were you” she drawled, winking in a coy manner. “Smell that?”

 

Something strong _had_ been trying to stink the Doctor’s nose into submission, but she hadn’t given it half a thought until now. The thing hurt too much for her to really use it but she breathed in, finally allowing time to process in her nostrils.

 

“Engine fuel” she realised, sinking back and no longer pressing against her restraints.

 

“Exactly. Not to mention one or two flints I’ve so carefully tied to your chair legs” Missy replied sweetly, leaning back against the edge of the table. “They’ve all been, shall we say, _anointed_ , dear, and they’re now simply awaiting your blessing. So should the dinnertime conversation become too much for you to handle, simply drag your chair back to make your leave and the everyone _burn_ with shame.”

 

Graham made a panicked noise, but the Doctor knew there wasn’t much she could do for now. She sat there, stock still, now mainly focused on finding out why this was happening and trying to move as little as possible.

 

“I can practically _smell_ the curiosity emanating in my direction” the other Time Lady half-giggled in that dangerously sweet way, “so I’ll go ahead and ask the question for you.”

 

She spread her arms out wide as if submitting herself for a full body scan in an airport terminal.

 

“What happened to little old me and my beautiful mug?”

 

One thing she could give the woman was that at least she got to the point quickly. The Doctor nodded as best she could, lacking the usual inclination to respond with words.

 

*  


_She’d been shot. In the back. By her past regeneration. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so excruciating._

_As the lift carrying her old prime minister-y self closed its doors and down to the other end of the colony ship, she scrabbled around in the dirt as the laser slowly ate away through her spinal cord and her internal organs started cooking. She didn’t know where he’d end up. After that little temper tantrum of his, she wasn’t sure she was even bothered about knowing, either._

_She needed to regenerate. She needed to get the Doctor. She needed to get rid of this gaping wound in her torso and she, the once-Queen of Evil, did **not** have enough time for fear or pity. _

_She put a gloved hand into her inner breast pocket. Where was it? She could already feel her body, spurred on by her willpower, starting to morph form as the laser fought against it. Hopefully she’d still be a woman. That would be nice. Let’s see. Tardis keys, ping pong ball, rubber duck…there it was. The switchblade, given to her by some random coloniser who was too busy running around like a headless chicken to notice that she wasn’t one of his asinine friends._

_The pain increased once again as she felt her ribs trying to form back around the wound. Her eyes were burning and she only just managed to stop herself from crying out. The skin of her face started to rupture and she decided that there was no time like the present._

_She began to cut. Unless she wanted to go blind, deaf, or worse, she needed to take off the skin before a second layer tried to grow underneath it. She did it quickly, starting around the edges and then working in, the agony so blessedly blinding that she didn’t feel the cold metal scrape away. Any parts of skin that dangled slightly, such as the chin, were cut off in their entirety._

_Then she stopped, gasping as the pain in her face slowly drifted away in a manner so pleasant she could have collapsed. Her own face, now a thin layer of skin, sat in her hand, her thumbs sticking through its eyeholes._

_Standing up, sharp jabs stung her up and down as her liver reformed itself and her bones snapped back into place, but aside from that, her physical appearance seemed to have remained the same. She delved back into the pocket and pulled out a small mirror she’d stolen, immediately examining herself._

_Yes. She’d definitely looked prettier. Unless red raw and exposed facial muscle was the new trend in this timeline. She never knew her teeth were that big either, what with the skin of the mouth covering them most of the time._

_Footsteps. Someone was coming._

_Looking around for something to hide behind, she saw the burn-out husk of a tractor, diving over the engine and landing face-down in the dirt. Great. Now she’d have at least fifty bacterial diseases by morning._

_Something dawned on her. She’d just left her face lying there, too. Hopefully these humans were just as short-sighted as the appeared to be and wouldn’t end up wondering just who exactly had done some impromptu surgery in the middle of a warzone._

_She risked a peek from underneath the charred vehicle, but ended up seeing a Cyberman instead. Carrying the Doctor himself. Beaten and bruised, jacket torn and sonic screwdriver in pieces._

_No, not a Cyberman, she reminded herself. That human he’d been lumbering around with. The one with the stupid hair and overly-colourful top. The human who had enough gall to physically pick up his body and move it somewhere else for no-one’s gain . The human who didn’t even have enough respect to let him **die**. _

_It hit her. The man who’d tried to save her from herself, the man who had lain down his own life to save everyone else’s, just wanted it all to end. He just wanted to let that crater in his back take him to the big Gallifrey in the sky, but those horrendously overbearing apes couldn’t take the hint. They clung to him no matter how much they bragged about their pathetic weaponry and wouldn’t ever let go._

_She was almost certain by this point that killing him would be more out of pity than malice. But that would never be seen as a token of gratitude than it was her reverting to her old ways once again._

_She watched intently, ignoring the small and pathetic sniffling noises emanating from the Cyberman’s vocoder and the first of many flies smelling fresh meat and congregating on her exposed face. If she couldn’t free him of it all, then the second best thing would be to help him through his own troubles and tragedies, just as he had helped her. She would ensure he understood humans for the upright orang-utans they were and then would sit back with pride as he got to work, removing them from the face of the universe and becoming so much happier in the process._

_After all, what were friends for?_

*  


“So what I thought was actually true” the Doctor breathed shallowly, furrowing her brow ever so slightly. “You honestly believe you’re doing the right thing here.”

 

“You mean what you _hoped_ was true” Missy cooed, coming ever further into the light, readjusting one of the straps on her mask as she did so. “Don’t worry, there’s no need for you to spout out your usual lies.”

 

The Doctor’s face set into an impressively straight line, upon which she fixed her once-friend with the stoniest of glares. Their faces were only centimetres away from each other.

 

“This is why you kidnapped my friends?” she hissed, “To test your little thesis on me?”

 

“ _Thesis_ indicates that opinion played a large part. I think we both know that this is fact.”

 

“I’m afraid I must have missed that memo. Because if you think that you’re going to somehow persuade me to kill Yaz, or anyone else in this room besides you, then you’re just as insane as you ever were.”

 

Missy put a hand on her breast and puffed her chest out slightly, unsettling a few flies as she did so.

 

“No need to be so mean. I’ve put this little game together for your benefit, and then you don’t even bother take part? That’s just _rude_ , really” she pouted exaggeratedly.

 

“I’m going to be nice. Let them go. _Now_.”

 

“In a moment, dear” Missy sneered, putting a foul-smelling gloved finger over the Doctor’s mouth. She only just resisted the childish urge to bite it. “I’ve got something I’d like to tell the children before we eat.”

 

One of her fam –she couldn’t tell whether it was Graham or Ryan – released another muffled sound of intrigue, one that would have no doubt been accompanied by a frown if he had been able to see their facial expressions.

 

“Question for you, little ducklings” she grinned, leaning across the table from the Doctor, directly facing Yaz and looking at each of them in turn. “Do you know why the Doctor has never succeeded in killing me? And by that, I mean _truly_ killing me. Pulling the plug once and for all, so to speak.”

 

Silence, save for a light throbbing noise from somewhere in the Tardis. The Doctor couldn’t help but wonder as to why it hadn’t bothered come to their aid yet.

 

“Because she wants to appear as a hero to you all” she walked over to Ryan and put her hands on his shoulders, to which he visibly stiffened. “and if she can’t fight villains every other week, then she can’t mask what she truly is inside. But what villains would take a thrashing and still come back for more? Daleks, yes, Cybermen, maybe, but where’s the fun in slaughtering billions upon billions of emotionless cyborgs every other week? Where’s the engagement? Where’s the personal drama? Where’s the enemy that can actually rival her in one way or another?”

 

She started to stroll over to Yaz and the Doctor’s breath hitched in her throat without her realising.

 

“How else would I get into the Tardis? She invited me. Not consciously, maybe, but you know how much she loves to talk about the thing – many a scientist in the past has saidthat a Tardis knows the owner better than they know themselves. True, it didn’t help them much when Davros’ lapdogs came along to clean up, but anyway.”

 

And with that, she was back over to where the Doctor sat, whose glare was all the fiercer, digging into one of her inner pockets as she did so. What she pulled out, the Doctor had to admit she wasn’t expecting. A tiny black book with the word _“Diary”_ written across the front in Gallifreyan.

 

“I’ve been in this crate of yours much more than once, dear” she grinned, turning the cover away from the Doctor’s face and starting to flick through it, nodding all the while. “And I’ve got to say…your thoughts are particularly strong. So much so that I could detect them the minute I entered. Such impatience…such desires for revenge. These pets of yours must be particularly idiotic this time around, no?”

 

The Doctor was now grasping the arms of her chair so tightly that the creaking of the ancient wood was audible.

 

“Prove it. Show me.”

 

“Oh, don’t worry, I will” came the reply, to whit the speaker turned around and walked over to one of the bookshelves behind her. She couldn’t crane her neck far enough but when Missy returned into her line of sight, she was carrying a tray. A tray decked out with three bowls that she couldn’t see the contents of and a mirror. “Before we eat, I’d just like to show you that I’ve done my little bit to help you get your life back on track. Consider it a girly makeover, if you will.”

 

She lifted up the mirror and the reason why her face hurt so much hit the Doctor like a ton of bricks.

 

Her companions hadn’t been wide-eyed out of fear of Missy. It had been out of fear of _her_.

 

Her own face had been brutally sliced off, strapped to her head with rubber bands and bobbles. One of her earrings had been taken off and was looped round what once functioned as her bottom lip. The entirety of her new mask’s circumference was coated in dry blood and she even noticed what looked like a maggot crawling slowly across the bottom. A single Cyber Industries earpiece sat deactivated in her ear, obviously having been used to keep her asleep throughout the process.

 

The wood began to crack underneath her fingers as she gritted her teeth, refusing to give Missy the satisfaction of proving her violent nature right. Behind his bandages, Ryan looked like he was trying to fight back tears.

 

“And _now_ ,” Missy continued, ignoring the sign of an oncoming murder, “let’s see what scrumptious delights I’ve cooked up for you all, luvvies.”

 

One by one, a bowl was respectively placed in front of each of her fam, who began to struggle in their seats and cry out again. Except this time, it didn’t stop.

 

In every single one, surrounded by ice and a knife and fork, sat _their_ own faces, perfectly cut off and staring back up at them. Eyeless, hollow shells of flesh and skin.

 

Missy simply stepped back, apparently admiring her handiwork whilst responding in the most saccharine voice the Doctor had ever heard her use.

 

_“I made it with lots of love!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally intended for there to be more dialogue in the opening, but I got bored trying to finish it. And obviously I assumed that if I was getting bored, you wouldn't find it too gripping either. So I spent more time working out how I could work in the origin of Missy's new look instead. But either way, I sure do love torturing everyone's favourite characters, don't I? We're nearing the end soon folks, as I can't imagine that the Doctor will be taking this lightly...
> 
> ...and at the same time proving Missy right. 
> 
> Comments, kudos and constructive criticism are once again always appreciated and adored. 'Til next time!


	6. The Doctor Pt.2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the slightly shorter chapter length. I've kind of given up after ages of adding and taking bits away from it. Nevertheless, I hope you still enjoy!

The words had been spat and half-screamed out of the Doctor’s mouth before she even realised they were formulating in her brain. She could feel strands of saliva seep from her bottom teeth as she struggled to speak without any lips, but she didn’t care.

 

**_“What did you do?!”_ **

****

“Well, you aren’t the only one who I need to show the real side of!” Missy responded in a haughty, indignant tone so as to be heard over the muted cries of panic from the three humans around them. “Besides, it’s an old family recipe! Ready-made face with assorted vegetables! Just cut, chill, cook and serve!”

 

She poked the side of Ryan’s bandages with one of her fingers. The Doctor winced as she noticed how far it seemed to move inwards.

 

“See, old friend? See how beneath their tough and pugilistic little exteriors, it’s just quivering, pink, fleshy stuff?”

 

“I see” the Doctor managed through gritted teeth. The chair arms were slowly starting to give way and ropes round her wrists were slightly starting to loosen. She sincerely hoped that her sonic screwdriver hadn’t been removed from her pocket.

 

“Now, which of us shall give the pre-dinner blessing?” Missy asked, the fine layers of sugar returning to her voice, extra emphasis being placed on the final word. She pulled out a simple match, human-made, from her pocket, striking it on the table edge. She held it only with her pinkie and thumb, teasing the inevitable drop as she leaned as close as possible, both of their mutilated faces staring at the other.

 

“Do it. Or I will.”

 

The Doctor refused to move her eyes away from her enemy’s…if she could just wriggle her right hand a little further… _there!_

 

“You know you want to…” Missy whispered in her ear.

 

The Doctor kept her gaze hanging for a split second longer, before she moved her chair back with such speed and force she wouldn’t have been surprised if sparks had ignited even without the flints. The blaze was instant and rapid, consuming the first half of the table as she moved her free hand and released the other one, simply kicking the engulfed chair away to free her legs. Through the panicked cries of her friends, she could vaguely hear Missy blissfully murmur, “Isn’t it beautiful?”

 

“If you know me so well Missy, then you should have realised!” the Doctor replied in an inappropriately jovial tone. But there was still no mistaking the tinges of anger behind it. “Nobody knows this Tardis better than me!”

 

The screwdriver was still in her pocket, thank God. Either Missy had gotten too excited to check or she honestly believed that she wouldn’t feel the need to stop her carrying out her horrendous plan. She pointed it at the ceiling, tuning into the right frequency –

 

One of the main water pipes for the library heaters burst with the force of the screwdriver’s command, the weight of the water shattering through the ornate ceiling and dousing the lot of them. The flames were put out instantly, though Graham admittedly had to duck to the side so as to avoid being concussed by a hunk of falling wood.

 

She saw a flash of purple out of the corner of her vision, heading out of the door, but she paid it no heed as the rare fluttering of true panic entered her stomach once again. Her fam were slowly beginning to untangle themselves from the mess, but all were silent. It was her fault that this had happened to them. She should be the one to see what had happened to them first.

 

Yaz was the closest. She rushed over, delicately pulling off the bandages despite Yaz’s weak attempts to stop her. When the entire roll was eventually removed…

 

“Doctor?” the words were slightly choked. Brave, brave Yaz. “Just tell me. I can take it. My…my face is numb, but be honest.”

 

She got no further, as the Doctor simply pulled her into a tight hug and refused to let go. At first confused, she quickly melted into the embrace. Then over the Time Lord’s shoulder, she noticed Ryan slowly peel off Graham’s wrappings, then quickly discard of his own.

 

Both of them were completely okay. Slightly shaken, but there wasn’t a single thing wrong with their faces whatsoever.

 

She pushed herself out of the Doctor’s embrace, feeling the calmness and cynicism return like an old friend.

 

“I’m fine, aren’t I?”

 

The Doctor’s smile couldn’t have been wider. She opened her arms for another hold and as much as Yaz’s inner child craved it more than ever, she felt something else rise in her chest. Determination.

 

“How do we stop her?”  


The Doctor’s smile faltered.

 

“That’s not important right now, Yaz. You guys are. You’re my fam. I need to get you lot back to the pilot area, give you a quick look-over just in case-“

 

“No” this time it was Graham who spoke up. “We’ll be alright and you know it.”  


“But, I can’t-“she tried.

 

“Doc, we _are_ your family” he said, his face set in deathly seriousness. “And we’re telling you, as your family, that we’ll be perfectly fine. Now go and get her.”  


Yaz could see that for once in her life, the Doctor was truly speechless.

 

“I-“she managed, but then she noticed similar expressions being displayed by other two companions as well. With one last fleeting glance, she began to run. Out of the library. And following the path of lights her one and only time machine had set out for her.

 

*

 

Missy hurtled through corridor after corridor, fuming. There truly was no getting through to that idiot, male _or_ female.

 

At first she’d been looking for a way out, but now she just needed somewhere far away from that bumbling, brace-wearing buffoon where she’d have a few seconds to come up with another plan. No doubt that the treacherous time machine she was currently in would lead the goody two-shoes right to her, but then again she always did enjoy a challenge.

 

Damn it…every time she thought she knew where she was going, the doors led somewhere else. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so infuriating. But what was this?

 

Footsteps. Panicked and hurried. A female too, based on the sound of their laboured breathing. She scraped her hand along the ground, hoping to find a weapon as she put her back to the wall, waiting for them to come around the corner. Looked like sheer brutality would have to do for now.

 

Her fingers closed around a loose pipe, which she tore off with as much force as possible and swung in the direction of her approaching foe. It was the Doctor, surprisingly enough. After _that_ disastrous performance just a few seconds ago, Missy had to admit that she was surprised the woman wasn’t busy coddling those dullard humans she’d rescued instead. She must be special.

 

*

 

The Doctor caught the pipe with the speed of a star going supernova, flecks of blond hair catching in her eyes and mouth as she grabbed the receiving end with both hands and wrenching the thing out of Missy’s grasp. Not that it seemed to faze her in the least.

 

“You just had to go and spoil it, didn’t you?” she snapped, brow furrowed and all smugness gone, “Destroying an ornate table! Ruining the ambiance! Well, at least you followed me outside to-“

 

“Be quiet” the Doctor replied simply, punching her in the stomach. Missy fell back, leaning against the wall to steady herself as her smile seeped back onto her features.

 

“Ah” she replied, taking notice of the steely glare that had replaced absolutely any warmth within the Doctor’s eyes. “Now that the kiddies aren’t around, mummy and daddy can fight. Or is it mummy and mummy? I hear humans are a lot more tolerant these days…”

 

“I said, _be quiet_ ” the Doctor growled, advancing towards her. “No more talking.”

 

“Ah, so a dance, then!” Missy sneered, diving without a second’s notice. But the Doctor was ready for it. She stepped to the side, making sure to stick her foot out far enough for her opponent to trip over. Those close combat training sessions on Judokon 13 were definitely coming in handy, though admittedly none of those classes had ever mentioned exactly what to do when your face has been cut off and kept slipping over your eyes with every sudden move. Either that or her attention may have been waning.

 

“No. No more dances, either.”

 

Missy looked ready to try and stand back up again, but the Doctor let a small reserve of her bottled anger manifest itself, grabbing her on the back of her head and plunging her face-first into the floor. There was a rather unsettling squelching noise as Missy managed to pull herself back up, her back mercifully to the Doctor as her face remained on the cold metal – just like how it hung to the wall when she first found it back on the colony ship.

 

“Oh, excuse me, dear. I appear to have dropped my face.”  


But the Doctor wasn’t listening.

 

“No more _anything_. This isn’t ever happening again.”

 

Missy let out a low chuckle as she tightened her mask back over the fleshy patch it once protected, though it sounded weak. Forced.

 

“What – what do you mean by that, may I ask?”

 

“I mean that in a way, you were right. I’m tired. Of this. Of you and me, constantly tearing the universe apart to fight each other. I tried to help you, but I failed. You’re just as bad, if not worse than you were before.”

 

“What, just because I decide to pick on widdle Ryan and Yaz?” Missy drawled, adopting a condescending baby-talk voice. “Speaking of which, how did they react when they found out that the face thing was all a big hoax? Did they cry with happiness? Bet they wouldn’t stop clinging onto you with gratitude after you managed to get them back to the control room.”  


“I didn’t get them back to the control room.”

 

Missy looked like Christmas had just come early.

 

“Ha! So you just let them die, did you? After all your moral upstanding when I was giving my little trivia questions, you stood there and watched their betrayed tears as they cooked alive before rushing off to find me? You know, you could have at least let me change. I could have put on my best dress for our first showdown of the century.”

 

“No. They told me to come after you. And contrary to what you might believe, I have faith in them.”  


For the first time since they’d first met, a mix of hesitation and apprehension was visible on what remained of Missy’s features. And there was no longer any denying the faltering in her voice.

 

“Well – well, you shouldn’t. They’re killing you, you know. Holding you back. Making you-“

 

“They make me a better person.”

 

“ _Liar!”_ Missy hissed, her accent thickening as both eyes, clouded and clear, narrowed in undisguised outrage “You know they make you anything _but_!”

 

With a final sharp tug, she turned and fled again, this time with her opponent in hot pursuit. The Doctor brushed away the hairs that weren’t stuck to her exposed flesh and began to take notice of the way the corridor’s interior slowly changed with each sharp turn. The Tardis was deliberately leading them somewhere. And she had a good idea as to what that somewhere was.

 

The final door Missy ran towards was three feet thick and made up of pure dwarf star metal, yet she paid it no heed as it automatically slid open to accept her. The Doctor noticed her diary slip out of her pocket and hit the floor as she dashed past, but nothing seemed to register in her target’s brain until she let out a startled shriek as the walkway underneath seemed to end halfway across the room and she began to fall towards the red-hot core of the Tardis’ engine.

 

The Doctor’s hand shot out instantly and caught Missy’s in a vice-like grip, suspending her there with half of her body hanging above the scaldering depths.

 

“Not that way, Missy” she said simply, her usually-chipper tone flattened with deathly sternness. “Everything that happens to you inside this ship happens by my hand. Because I’ve been thinking about what you’ve been saying back there, _old friend_. About why I didn’t just kill you in a way that you could never regenerate from.”

 

She inched herself closer, ignoring the build-up of sweat that started to itch away in the areas covered by her oversized coat and bloodstained hood.

 

“So how about it? How about I just end it once and for all? After all, with all the energy inside this engine, you’ll never survive.”  


Missy’s sneer was like splitting skin.

 

“Go on then, I dare you! You could have finished me off centuries ago! Abandoned me with the Daleks! Vaporised my corpse into dust when I was shot! But you just can’t admit that you enjoy saving the day, playing the hero-“

 

“-I’m not playing anything” the Doctor responded in that same measured tone, her eyes fiery enough to match the temperature of the room. “And I daresay I’m not the only one who’s, as you may view it, denying their true selves. You could never look past me, could you? You could never bear the thought that there were other Gallifreyans still in the universe; because otherwise all your time spent fighting me will have been wasted. Time that easily could have been spent hunting down the lot who put the drums in your head instead.”

 

She inched forwards again. Half of Missy’s other foot slipped and she was now only standing on the platform by her toes.

 

“Not to mention those coordinates for Gallifrey you made up. You thought I’d lose all hope, didn’t you? You thought that I’d give up the search and never be able to prove just how pathetic and insignificant your schemes really are. But one thing you never knew was that after the incident on the colony ship, I spent a lot of time alone. Not killing. Not conquering. Searching. And in that time, while you were busy pointlessly plotting away, I worked it out. I found the _real_ coordinates.”

 

Every last trace of Missy’s smirk was gone, further evidenced by the trembling sarcasm of her tone.

 

“Trying to play me at my own game, are you?”  


The Doctor didn’t respond for the longest time, a single plume of flame from the engine illuminating her hardened features. Then she slowly leant towards Missy’s ear.

 

“Not just the coordinates. The name of the star system. The name of the universe. Even a route you can take via cruise liner. I know it _all_.”

 

Missy started to visibly squirm, trying to prise her wrist away. But the Doctor was having none of it as the woman began to ramble nonsensically, seemingly more for her own benefit than anyone else’s.

 

“Yeah, sure you do! Get off me! You’re lying! _I know you are!”_

 

“I’m not. Look into my eyes.”

 

“Listen to me! Those humans back there, they’ll be dead before you know it! Not me! I’m your real family, not them! In the end, it’ll ever be the two of us! Just you and-“  


“Well then this is the end of that family, because I choose them.”

 

Up close, the Doctor could see the clumsily-applied makeup on Missy’s corpse mask run heavily due to the ridiculous heat, matched by the way her eyes darted rapidly back and forth in pure terror.

 

And she smiled.

 

“Now let me get close enough to whisper it right in your ear, _darling_.”  


Missy had given in trying to physically remove herself and had now taken to virtually pleading.

 

“For Rassilon’s sake, listen to yourself! Our home is gone, we both know it-“

 

The Doctor’s next words were barely a whisper.

 

“Now then, Gallifrey. When I first found it, I was circling the moon of-“  


“ ** _Shut up!”_** Missy shrieked, using her free hand for a punch. The Doctor stumbled back from the impact, losing her grasp-

 

-the last she saw of Missy was her shadowed figure falling into the engine, her dress billowing behind her as she grew smaller and smaller until the fires consumed her. Her mask fell in a spin, its fixed grinning shape smiling up at the Doctor as she watched it too turn to ashes miles below the catwalk.

 

The Doctor spared the core one last look before she turned around and walked away, pausing only to notice something against her foot. The extreme temperature continued to blister away at the back of her neck thanks to the door’s newfound refusal to close, but she could stil make out its distinct shape through the haze.

 

The diary.

 

With steady hands and steely nerves, she pulled away the rubber band and flipped it onto the first page, only to find…nothing.

 

She tried the next few pages. Blank. Not even any pre-printed lines.

 

She put the entire book between her thumb and forefinger and flicked through it at maximum speed. Not a sausage.

 

The entire thing was blank. No psychic paper. Nothing. Just the dead remains of a tree.

 

She wasn’t even sure how to feel about that.

 

She tucked it into her own inside pocket, ignoring the similarities between her and Missy’s storage methods, before refocusing her efforts on heading back to the library and finding her fam. No doubt they’d be hungry and tired.

 

She decided that she should be the one to cook tonight. Maybe try to make dinner a bit more inviting than the one they’d just had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm hoping that wasn't anticlimactic. I tried my best to make the Doctor seem as dark as possible and that was the end of our big villain after all, so I hope you all liked it. Still, how will the Doctor and the rest of her fam deal with everything that's happened in the aftermath? Find in the final chapter - Dun-Dun-Dun!
> 
> 'Til next time!
> 
> (And yes, I made up the name Judokon 13. No prizes for guessing how I thought up that one).


	7. Yaz and the Doctor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me much longer than it should have. But I hope you enjoy it regardless, despite it not being as long as the other chapters.

Graham’s eyelids felt like they were burning as he slowly opened them, only to be near-blinded by a large fiery orb directly in front of his face. Something rested underneath his head. Soft. Comfortable. And he was lying down.

 

“Alright, granddad?”

 

He knew that voice.

 

Groaning, he turned his head slightly as Ryan came into focus, sitting beside his bed on one of the wooden chairs Graham had often insisted on leaving around the house.

 

“Oh, bloody hell… what’s that big orange ball outside?” he grumbled, every word an effort. Then he realised that he wasn’t exactly in the last location he remembered being in, promptly sitting up in so fast a manner that Ryan jumped slightly. “Hold on, where’s the Tardis? And the Doc? And Yaz?”

 

“They’ve left” Ryan responded simply, gently pushing him back down into a laying position. “You’d sort of passed out from exhaustion after the whole…”

 

He motioned something wild with his hands, obviously unable to find words to describe the entire affair.

 

“Not to mention that I could tell Yaz wanted some time talking to her…alone. So I sorta put you into bed and you slept through the entire night.”

 

“You alright though, son?”

 

The drawn-out silence between them was answer enough. It was eventually Ryan who coughed and broke it.

 

“It’s almost eleven, by the way. I’ve been trying to make some eggs, but may have messed it up slightly. So toast will have to do.”

 

Graham sighed, relieved that everything was alright.

 

“Nah, its fine” he said, “I ought to get up, anyway. No use lazing about.”

 

Ryan pressed something small into his hand, a smirk on his lips.

 

“And what’s this?”

 

“A bell” Ryan replied, the smile now fully forming. “You stay here. I’ll be making the toast and if you want anything else doing, just ring the bell. I’m sure it’ll be easy enough to make.”

 

Graham tried to put on a menacing face, but his tone of voice gave him away.

 

“Take this back son, or this going right up your-“

 

“Just give it a swing and Chef Sinclair is on the job!” his grandson laughed. Graham couldn’t help but chuckle at this.

 

“Oh, go to hell!”

 

He turned his head back to face the sun, which was now much easier to look at. Nevertheless, he could still feel the smile leave his face pretty much instantly. Ryan’s footsteps slowly receded down the stairs and a few birds were audible through the partially-opened window. All things considered, it looked like it was shaping up to be a good day.

 

*

 

Yaz wandered into the console room, after seeing if there was any furniture they could salvage from the waterlogged library. The books were completely fine – all completely protected with waterproof paper from the 27th century, the Doctor had assured her – but the chairs were well and truly beyond repair. Then again, it was unlikely that she would have been able to ever again sit in one and feel comfortable, regardless.

 

She wandered into the console room. Despite a lack of real, recent exercise, her legs seemed to ache with each step. She must have been struggling against those ropes more than she thought.

 

The Doctor was leaning against the console, which was in itself unusual. She was rarely ever seen not doing anything. Whenever someone else was there, she’d be locked in a state of constant activity, be it moving, talking, attempting to fix something, accidentally blowing something up as a result of attempting to fix something…this new, quiet Doctor made he much more uneasy than any angry one could.

 

“Doctor?” she coughed, bracing herself for the face she’d have to see when the other woman turned around. She knew it was silly to be afraid – she was a police officer, not an immature six year old who judged on looks alone – but she there was that repetitive nagging, primal instinct that made her uneasy regardless.

 

But when the woman finally awoke from her semi-stupor and turned with a light smile, the gaping contrast between visible skin and flesh was gone, replaced instead with a fine, red line. The same went for the rims around the eyes, nose and mouth. All in all, it simply looked like someone had drawn on her face with a felt tip.

 

Woah. When did she have the time to do _that?_

 

“You okay, Yaz?” the Doctor asked, pressing her hands against the multitude of buttons and leaders, now facing them instead of letting them only see her back.

 

Every time Yaz thought the Doctor couldn’t throw any more surprises at her, she’d pull out another rabbit from the hat.

 

“How…how did you…?”

 

“The Tardis can control the time zones in each room. While you were in the library, I took us to New Earth. They’ve got a great hospital…for the most part. Either way, they owed me a real favour and the Sisters of Plentitude managed to fix my mug in about two hours, give or take. All it took was a little bit of stitching. Though they did also recommend that I moisturise a bit more from time to time.”

 

“Oh” Yaz decided to utter eventually, not sure if there really was anything else that could be said.

 

“I mean, I didn’t think you’d be too interested in seeing it” the Doctor added hurriedly, obviously assuming she’d done something wrong, “It’s just the same as Sheffield, really, except with a few more flying cars-“

 

“It’s fine” Yaz interrupted, though for some reason, it felt like a humongous effort to say. She walked over and slowly moved her arms towards the other woman. She knew this would probably seem strange and vaguely unwanted. But the atmosphere in the air was thick and heavy, like a humid jungle and as far as she was concerned, they both needed this.

 

The Doctor made no sound as Yaz slowly hugged her.

 

“Thank you,” Yaz murmured into her shirt, “for everything. I’ve never really gotten the opportunity to tell you…just how much you’ve changed my life. And please…don’t blame yourself for anything that happened back there, because it wasn’t your fault. And don’t bother lying, because I can tell you are.”

 

The Doctor’s response was a long time coming, emanating from behind Yaz’s ear.

 

“Oh, Yaz” she huffed good-naturedly, snorting a little, “Clever, clever Yaz. Nothing much gets past you, does it?”

 

Even though she knew the Doctor wouldn’t be able to see it, Yaz simply smiled. And that was enough. Neither one of them even noticed the Tardis take them back to the present age until the cloister bell rang and one of the doors opened slightly.

 

“I guess that’s my cue to leave” Yaz chuckled, slowly untangling herself from a hug that had since become slightly more intimate in ways she couldn’t quite explain.

 

“Yeah, she can be quite impatient, the old girl” the Doctor agreed fondly, hands once again back on the controls. "Never wanting to hang around for too long. Always onto the next big adventure."

 

“I’ll leave you two alone then, shall I?”

 

She was about to leave, suddenly excited to see and have dinner with her mum, dad, hell, even Sonya…then one of the screens around the console caught her eye.

 

A fixed image of Missy, corpse mask and all, grinned at her. It still carried that air of menace, even though it was just a set of pixels. Next to her was an image of a bright orange planet, surrounded by lines and lines of red text. The only part she could read given her distance was _“PLANET GALLIFREY – LOCATION: UNKNOWN”._

 

She had no idea what the link was, but she didn’t really want to, either.

 

“Doctor?” she called out one last time. “You will bear what I’ve said in mind, won’t you?”

 

The Doctor initially looked confused, obviously not aware of what she’d been looking at.

 

“’Course, Yaz” she said brightly, nodding just a tad too quickly to be believable. “’Course I will, yeah.”

 

Yaz just nodded hesitantly, deciding it was high time she left. Maybe it was for the best that they wouldn’t meet up again for another few days ago. She carried on towards the open door when the Doctor spoke to her one last time.

 

“Yaz?”

 

She turned around, one hand on the wood.

 

“Yes?”

 

“When you were tied at the table, before I woke up” the Doctor began, her tone heavy. Yaz could easily tell that this was what had been plaguing her mind so badly. “What did she tell you lot?”

 

“Nothing.”

 

The Doctor’s mouth opened, but she cut her off.

 

“Doctor, really. I don’t know what happened between you two when you ran off, but we didn’t hear a peep from her and she didn’t actually come into the room until you were waking up.”

 

The first few raise of sunlight hit Yaz’s face as she stepped out into the cool breeze of the Saturday afternoon.

 

“We never even knew she was there.”

 

** THE END **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know what y'all may be thinking: "what the hell's this?" "What's with the stupid closing sentence?" "You haven't yet told us about why the Tardis didn't stop Missy from entering!" 
> 
> I deliberately wanted to keep this ending ambiguous for when I write more Doctor Who in the future. My next work will be part 2 of a series I'll be making - while not directly linked to this story, it may occasionally reference it, so the relationship between the main characters feels more genuine and grows as a natural pace (so yes, there'll be VERY slow burn, sorry :)). I sincerely hope you all loved reading this story as much as I did writing it, as your comments always give me the motivation to do more. 
> 
> See you all on the flip side. 'Til next time! ;)

**Author's Note:**

> So, how did I do? Obviously I'm wanting to continue this story, what with it being my first in the Doctor Who fandom, but what did you think? What did you like, dislike, or want to see in the future? I'd love some constructive feedback!
> 
> 'Til next time!


End file.
